


Passing Grade

by valderys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valderys/pseuds/valderys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I did pass the field test," said Jemma, breathlessly, "Which was great actually, and because I was excited about it, overly excited probably, and I was waiting for you to come back from yours, and I was just the *teensiest* bit bored, I..."  She trailed off looking hopeful, and the pit of Fitz's stomach opened up, hollow like a cavern.  He had a bad feeling about this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing Grade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> I hope I've remembered this right - that Fitz hasn't passed his field test but that Simmons has... I've tried to check it, but couldn't find the reference and don't have much time as this is a last minute pinch hit. If I've remembered wrongly, dear recipient, please consider this an AU :)

"What do you mean, you didn't pass?" Jemma flailed so much she nearly fell off the regulation SHIELD issue bunk. Which wouldn't be difficult, thought Fitz sourly, as they were narrow enough.

"Just what I said," he continued, unnecessarily he thought, "I took the field test and I failed it."

Jemma stared at him, her eyes wide like a deer but just as Leo thought he might get away with it, those same eyes narrowed. "You've never failed a test in your life. What is it, Fitz? What aren't you telling me?"

He swung himself up onto the unused top bunk. The trainee quarters were small, but at least they didn't make even baby agents share - so this top bunk was his more often than not, if they ended up working on a project until late, or were arguing their way through a problem and he ended up falling asleep here. The act of moving also gave him precious seconds to think about what he could say that wouldn't have Jemma imploding or getting upset. Small chance of that.

"Look, we have plenty of time," said Fitz patiently, "We don't graduate from the program for three more years. I'll take it again."

There were a few seconds of silence, and Fitz thought he could relax, then...

"Was it the assault course?" asked Jemma, "Or the target shooting, no, it can't be the shooting, you're an excellent shot."

"No, it wasn't the target shooting," agreed Fitz, knowing that Jemma wasn't someone to let something like this go. He leaned over the edge of the bunk until he could see her concerned face, albeit upside down. "Please don't worry, it'll be ok. We're not going to be field agents anyway, so it doesn't matter, right? Not much call for hand to hand techniques in a lab."

"So that's what it was? The hand to hand?"

"No!"

Fitz glared at her and waited. She blinked at him. "I only want to help, Fitz, you know that."

He did know that, and it stung. They'd helped each other through every single bit of the training so far but the tests... You took those on your own. Which meant no help. And he'd failed the field test. He had a horrible swooping feeling that without Jemma by his side, he was nothing. Just a puffed up boy, trying to be something he wasn't. No, he'd do better next time, he would. He'd asked the instructor - there were lots of cadets didn't make it the first time, he wasn't unusual.

Which in turn made him ashamed - that was the whole point, the pair of them, that they were unusual, unique. In a training program like SHIELD's, full of the best and the brightest, the two of them stood out, top of their class by a mile in the sciences. Which is why he felt such a twisting sense of shame that he couldn't pass something as simple as these physical challenges.

Jemma stood up and took a deep breath. She patted his hand in a motherly way, as Fitz rolled over in the bunk to look at her properly.

"Well, perhaps it's just as well, you know. Since it makes what I was going to say, so much easier." She smiled at him, although a little tremulously. "I failed the field test too!"

He stared at her, until her face began to twist and she began biting her lip - Jemma was a terrible liar, especially with him, they'd learnt each other's tells far too well for that. "No, you didn't."

"All right, I didn't! I'm sorry."

Fitz was touched. Only Jemma would feel bad about _not_ failing something. It was one of the things he loved about her, that she could be so caring. Instead, she began wringing her hands together in a most disconcerting way.

"I did pass the field test" said Jemma, breathlessly, "Which was great actually, and because I was excited about it, overly excited probably, and I was waiting for you to come back from yours, and I was just the _teensiest_ bit bored, I..." She trailed off looking hopeful, and the pit of Fitz's stomach opened up, hollow like a cavern. He had a bad feeling about this. 

"What?" he asked, trepidation making his mouth go dry.

"I signed us both up to be field agents," said Jemma in a rush.

She threw herself back down into the desk chair, which creaked under the sudden assault, as he glared at her. "Really, Jemma? Without asking me?" Fitz discovered that beneath the slightly sick sensation, he was really feeling quite hurt. Which covered up the paranoid, jelly-legged worry of it all quite nicely, thank you very much.

Now it was Jemma's turn to look shifty and to try to prevaricate. "I know we hadn't precisely, officially agreed that's what we were going to do, but we had talked about it, Fitz, you know we had."

He looked away, not wanting to meet her eyes. They had talked about it, and Fitz hadn't wanted to apply - the whole idea of it scared him shitless. But he hadn't wanted to tell Jemma that either. So this was his comeuppance for his own cowardice that utterly and completely served him right. So much for his comfortable idea of hiding himself away in a lab for the next thirty years. He'd have been entirely happy squirrelled away in some basement clean room and never seeing the sun - or another assault course, come to that - ever again. If only he'd had the guts to tell Jemma that in the first place. Hoisted on his own petard. Whatever that was.

"Fitz?" Jemma sounded so small, so tentative and he didn't like that. It wasn't her fault, not really. It was he himself who was the inadequate one. The stupid idiot who'd let their partnership down. Jemma had just been a little... overenthusiastic.

He rolled over again and smiled at her, although it didn't feel very real to him. It got Jemma to smile back though, which was all that mattered. "Well, now what are we going to do?" he asked instead, trying to sound cheerful and not bitter or bloody terrified, "Because as I, in fact, failed my field test instead, it does put the proverbial cat very much amongst those annoying pigeons."

"That's all right," said Jemma, looking happier now, "We've got three years, as you said. No-one's going to want us before then, after all, not... all wet behind the ears like we are! There'll be plenty of time to toughen up, level up and practise our hand to hand combat..."

She jumped up from the desk and proceeded to make high-pitched biff and pow noises while exaggeratedly fighting imaginary bad guys, like the old Batman tv show. He laughed dutifully, because he knew she was trying to cheer him up.

"Level up? SHIELD isn't World of Warcraft, you know."

But she did know, she was still trying to make him feel better. He didn't deserve Jemma sometimes, Fitz thought fondly. He jumped off the bunk and made a grab to put her in a headlock which set her shrieking as she fended him off. "And it wasn't my hand to hand that I failed on, woman."

He'd do better next time, he decided. He vowed it to himself and to Jemma. She deserved that commitment from him, their partnership did. If she wanted to be a field agent then that's what they'd become, because the alternatives were worse, despite his doubts - he couldn't bear the thought of Fitz without Simmons, it just felt wrong. Even if he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd bottled the test unconsciously because of his sodding nerves.

Well, he'd just take it again, wouldn't he? The basic airborne part of the test? He wasn't the first cadet to refuse to jump, parachute or no parachute. That's what the instructors had told him, and Fitz had no reason not to believe them. He was determined not to let Jemma down - after all, he had three years to learn how to make himself do this stuff. 

Anyway, how often, really, was he likely to need to throw himself out of a plane?


End file.
